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How to Die Well
Most people don’t die quickly.
As much as I would rather die suddenly–while putting a smile on my wife’s face–the odds are that I will spend my last hours or days in a hospital, unable to make the decisions about my care.
Will I be doing my vegetable impression after a car accident, or be left unable to speak during a botched Viagra implanantation in my 90s? I don’t know.
There is one thing I know about the end of my life. I do not want to linger for months, blind and deaf, on a feeding tube. I don’t want my family to spend the last few months of my life secretly ashamed of hoping for my burden to end. I’d like my end to be quick enough that the emotions they are feeling aren’t a sad combination of guilt and relief, just sadness at my passing and happiness at having had me.
That’s the legacy I’d like.
The problem is making my wishes known. If I’m lying in a hospital bed, asking to be allowed to die, they’ll consider me suicidal instead of rationally considering my request. If I’m completely incapacitated, I won’t even be able to ask.
I can certainly make my wishes known beforehand, but how will my family be able to communicate my desires to the doctors in charge and how will they convince the doctor that they aren’t just after my currently imaginary millions?
That’s where a living will comes in. A living will, also know as an advanced directive, is simply a formal document that explicitly states what you want to happen to you if you are too out of it to make your wishes known.
Aging With Dignity has put together an advanced directive called Five Wishes that meets the legal requirements for an advanced directive in 42 states.
The Five Wishes are:
1. Who is going to make decisions for you, if you can’t? For me, the obvious choice is my wife. She appears to like me enough to want me around and love me enough to do what needs to be done, even if it’s difficult. On the chance that we end up in the same car accidents, matching vegetables on a shelf, I’ve nominated my father for the unpleasantness. I don’t think I’ve told him that, yet.
2. What kind of treatment do you want, or want to refuse? When my Grandpa was going, he made sure to have a Do Not Resuscitate order on file with the nursing home, the clinic, and the hospital. He knew it was his time and didn’t want to drag it out.
3. How comfortable do you want to be? Do you want to be kept out of pain, at all costs, even if it means being drugged into oblivion most of the day? Do you want a feeding tube, or would you rather only receive food and fluids if you are capable of taking them by mouth?
4. How do you want to be treated? Do you want to be allowed to die at home? Do you want people to pray at your bedside, or keep their religious views to yourself? Some people want to be left alone, while others are terrified of dying alone. This wish also covers grooming. Personally, if I soil myself, I’d like to get cleaned up as soon as possible. I’ll have enough to deal with without smelling bad, too.
5. What do you want your family to know? This includes any funeral requests you have and whether you’d like to be cremated, buried, or both, but also goes beyond them. Do you want your family to know that you love them? You can also take this section to ask feuding family members to make peace or ask them to remember your better days, instead of the miserable few at the end.
The last 3 wishes are unique to the Five Wishes document, but they are excellent things to include. The most important part of advanced directive is the advanced part. You have the right to want whatever works for you, but your wishes don’t matter if nobody knows about them.
How about you? Do you have a living will? Does your family know what you want to have happen if the worst happens?
3 Things You Need to Know About Homeowner’s Insurance
- Image by ecstaticist via Flickr
If you are a homeowner, you need homeowner’s insurance. Period. Protecting what is mostly likely the biggest investment of your life with a relatively small monthly payment is so important, that, if you disagree, I’m afraid we are so fundamentally opposed on the most basic elements of personal finance that nothing I say will register with you.
If, however, you have homeowner’s insurance, or–through some innocent lapse–need homeowner’s insurance and you just want some more information, welcome!
The basic principle of insurance is simple. You bet against the insurance company that you or your property are going to get hurt. If you’re right, you win whatever your policy limit is. If you’re wrong, the insurance company cleans up with your monthly premium. Insurance is gambling that something bad will happen to you. If you lose, you win!
Now, there are some things about homeowner’s insurance that you may not realize.
1. Homeowner’s insurance will not protect you against a flood. For that you need flood insurance. The easiest way to tell which policy covers water damage is to see if the water touched the ground before your house. An overflowing river, or heavy rain that seeps through the ground and your foundation are both considered flooding. On the other hand, hail breaking your windows and allowing the rain in or a broken pipe are both generally covered by your homeowner’s policy.
Do you need flood insurance? I would say that, if you live on the coast below sea level, you should have flood insurance. If you’re on a flood plain, you need flood insurance. If you’re not sure, use the handy tool at http://www.floodsmart.gov to rate your risk and get an estimate on premium costs. My home is in moderate-to-low risk of flooding, so full coverage starts at $120.
2. You can negotiate an insurance claim. When you have an insurance adjuster inspecting your home after you file a claim, most of the time they will lowball you. Generous adjusters don’t get brought in for the next round of claims. If you know the replacement costs are higher than they are offering, or even if you aren’t sure, don’t sign! Once you sign, you are locked into a contract with the insurance company. Take your time and do your research. Get a contractor out to give you a damage estimate, if you can.
3. Your deductible is too low. If you’ve built up an emergency fund, you can safely boost your deductible to a sizable percentage of that fund and save yourself a bunch of money. When we got our emergency fund up to about $2000, we raised our deductible from $500 to $1000 and saved a couple of hundred dollars per year. That change pays for itself every 2 years we don’t have a claim. I absolutely wouldn’t recommend this if you don’t have the money to cover your deductible, but, if you do, it can be a great money-saver.
Bonus tip: If you get angry that your homeowner’s insurance doesn’t cover flooding, even if you haven’t had to deal with a flood, and you cancel your insurance out of spite, and you subsequently have a ton of hail damage, your insurance company won’t cover the crap that happened during the window where you weren’t their customer.
Are you one of the misguided masses who prefer to trust their home to fate?
Do you have an insurance horror story?
Sunday Roundup
My girls have been riding in horse shows lately. Sometimes, it seems like that’s all we’ve been doing on the weekends, but they love it. My wife’s favorite hobby now matches my daughters’ favorite pastime. As a bonus, we’ll never have to paint their room again, with the way they are accumulating ribbons.
Best Posts
It is possible to be entirely too connected.
My life is now complete. It’s possible to buy 95 pounds of cereal marshmallows for just $399. Breakfast at my house just got perfect.
I wholeheartedly agree with Tam, “You don’t need to make any excuses for crashing things into each other at the speed of light in an underground tunnel longer than Manhattan that’s had the air pumped out and been chilled to a couple degrees above absolute zero. That doesn’t need a reason. “
Carnivals I’ve Rocked
Credit Cards: My Failed Experiment was included in the Best of Money Carnival, the Carnival of Wealth, and the Totally Money Blog Carnival.
My niche site article on how to Make Extra Money with Keyword Research was included in the Totally Money Blog Carnival.
Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.
The Story of Sammy
As I’ve mentioned, we’re cleaning out my mother-in-law’s house. She was a hoarder who passed away a couple of months ago. As of yesterday, we’ve filled two 30-yard dumpsters. For perspective, that’s big enough to park our F150.
I’m not here to talk about that, or the 20 year old can of green beans that burst and ran down my leg on Saturday.
Last month, we put a recliner out on the curb with a free sign. A few minutes later, a couple of guys stopped by and grabbed it.
Last week, one of the guys–I’ll call him Sammy–stopped by and left a note on the windshield of one of our inherited cars, asking about buying it.
Long story short, we sold him two cars. One hadn’t been run in a year or two, and one had been parked for almost 20 years. We signed this titles and let him take the cars while he was still $50 short of the purchase price. This isn’t a story about the cars.
It’s a story about Sammy.
Sammy doesn’t have a lot of money. He’s living off of a monthly check from an old injury, and his fiancee works part-time. They’re living in Section 8 housing, and consistently have more month than money. When he was younger, he made some decisions that make some forms of employment difficult now.
On Friday, Sammy stopped by. He was supposed to give us $50, but said that getting one of the cars running had cost more than expected, and it still had a problem that was keeping it from being safe on the road. He asked about an extension.
No problem.
Then, he looked around my mother-in-law’s overgrown yard and asked if he could help. After we negotiated the price, he asked if he could a) borrow our tools for the work, and b) get a ride Saturday morning.
I am a nice guy.
Saturday, I was planning to pick him up, then drive downtown to pick up a friend who has been living at the Salvation Army since moving to the area. His friend was so excited about the work, he hopped on a bus at 6am and got to Sammy’s house.
When I got there, Sammy also had a teenager he was mentoring. He told me that his dream was to start a lawn-care business with his friend, so they can put kids to work and help them turn into productive citizens. Idle, broke, and bored teenagers are a recipe for disaster. Teenagers who grow into men not believing they have a chance to change their future are worse.
I dropped them off and went to have a chat with my wife.
We’re far from rich but, at the moment, we are fairly flush. We’ve found some cash, and a there is a bit of life insurance money. Most of that will be going into remodeling the house, but we have a bit extra. If we can take a few hundred dollars, and help launch Sammy into a business that will help him, his family, and a circle of kids with few prospects, I think it’s the right thing to do.
When I told Sammy what we were considering, he started to break down. It was a truly emotional experience for him to know that somebody was willing to take a chance on him.
I told him to put together plan. I want to know what it would take for him to get started. Hopefully, he’s serious enough to do that. I’d like to help.
Why Jodie Sweetin’s Latest Divorce Should Make You Start an Emergency Fund
There’s lots of people talking about former Full House star Jodie Sweetin these days. Recent news reports are telling us that this 31-year-old mother of two is now on her way to filing for her third divorce. Yep, that’s right. Divorce #3. Sweetin got married in 2012 to Morty Coyle, and reports say that she is already on her way to filing the legal documents necessary to ask for a separation, which she claims is due to irreconcilable differences.
It was in 2008 when Sweetin filed for divorce from husband number two, Cody Herpin. She blamed the breakup on an already rocky marriage, as well as extreme financial hardships. Sweetin’s first marriage to Shaun Holguin, who she married in 2002, ended when she entered a treatment center for her longtime drug abuse.
Divorce
Because the life of a celebrity is more often than not on display for the whole world to see, there tends to be a belief that famous people get divorced more often than us other ordinary everyday folks. Although this isn’t true, when the news is telling us about a celebrity who’s getting ready to file for their third divorce and they’re only in their early thirties, it tends to make people start thinking! Thinking about what they would do if they ended up being in a similar situation.
Emergency Fund
Although everyone of course intends to stay married forever once they exchange those sacred vows, reality tells as that of least half of all marriages are going to end in some type of separation or divorce. This is the reason why the vast majority of people who plan on getting married one day don’t even bother to plan for what they would do in case of a divorce. They simply don’t think that divorce is something that will happen to them, just everyone else.
Although Sweetin surely didn’t believe that she would have three failed marriages by the time she was 31, her failed marriage situation is helping other people by letting them understand how important it is to have in emergency fund in case such a situation comes up. An emergency fund is going to allow for a lot more freedom of choices if the instance of divorce does happen to come up.
Good to Know
Money struggles have been an issue in all three of Sweetin’s marriages, which is still the number one reason for divorce in America. It’s not hard to start an emergency fund and is something every newly married person should do asap. Well, waiting until they first return from their honeymoon might be a good idea.
